War Is A Crime .org - Torturehttp://warisacrime.org/taxonomy/term/129/0
enOngoing Torture http://warisacrime.org/ongoingtorture
<p style="text-align: left;">We've watched the Obama White House announce the end of torture and immunity for torturers, two policies that appear incompatible and have proven to be so.&nbsp; We've seen the White House claim the right to torture, and seen that greeted with silence and an averted gaze by those pretending torture is over.&nbsp; We've seen report after report of ongoing torture greeted with silence from the same pretenders, among whom we must include Congress.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE51O3TB20090225?sp=true" rel="nofollow">Reuters</a>, February 25, 2009.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/15/guantanamo-detainee-phones-al-jazeera-from-prison/" rel="nofollow">New York Times</a>, April 15, 2009.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><a href="../../../../../node/42892" rel="nofollow">Chris Matthews interview of Axelrod, video and background info</a>, May 21, 2009.</p>
<p><a href="http://warisacrime.org/ongoingtorture" target="_blank">read more</a></p>http://warisacrime.org/ongoingtorture#commentsTortureWed, 17 Jun 2009 14:39:17 +0000davidswanson43692 at http://warisacrime.orgDistrict Sentinel Radio: Torture And Trade In The Senatehttp://warisacrime.org/content/district-sentinel-radio-torture-and-trade-senate
<p><iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/212493198&amp;color=ff5500&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false"></iframe></p>
http://warisacrime.org/content/district-sentinel-radio-torture-and-trade-senate#commentsTortureMon, 29 Jun 2015 15:37:10 +0000davidswanson69728 at http://warisacrime.orgHuman Experimentation: a CIA Habithttp://warisacrime.org/content/human-experimentation-cia-habit
<p>The <em>Guardian</em> on Monday made <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/15/cia-torture-human-experimentation-doctors?CMP=ema_565">public</a> a CIA document allowing the agency's director to "approve, modify, or disapprove all proposals pertaining to human subject research."</p>
<p>Human <em>what?</em></p>
<p>At Guantanamo, the CIA gave huge doses of the terror-inducing drug <a href="http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/253:exclusive-controversial-drug-given-to-all-guantanamo-detainees-akin-to-pharmacologic-waterboarding">mefloquine</a> to prisoners without their consent, as well as the supposed truth serum <a href="http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/11640-new-revelations-suggest-dod-cover-up-over-detainee-drugging-charges">scopolamine</a>. Former Guantanamo guard <a href="http://davidswanson.org/node/4657">Joseph Hickman</a> has <a href="http://warisacrime.org/content/we-murdered-some-folks-guantanamo">documented</a> the CIA's torturing people, sometimes to death, and can find no explanation other than research:</p>
<p>"[Why] were men of little or no value kept under these conditions, and even repeatedly interrogated, months or years after they'd been taken into custody? Even if they'd had any intelligence when they came in, what relevance would it have years later? . . . One answer seemed to lie in the description that Major Generals [Michael] Dunlavey and [Geoffrey] Miller both applied to Gitmo. They called it 'America's battle lab.'"</p>
<p>Non-consensual experimentation on institutionalized children and adults was common in the United States before, during, and even more so after the U.S. and its allies prosecuted Nazis for the practice in 1947, sentencing many to prison and seven to be hanged. The tribunal created the Nuremberg Code, standards for medical practice that were immediately ignored back home. Some American doctors <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16059427-against-their-will">considered</a> it "a good code for barbarians."</p>
<p>The code begins: "Required is the voluntary, well-informed, understanding consent of the human subject in a full legal capacity." A similar requirement is included in the CIA's rules, but has not been followed, even as doctors have assisted with such torture techniques as waterboarding.</p>
<p>Thus far, the United States has never really accepted the Nuremberg Code. While the code was being created, the U.S. was giving people <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guatemala_syphilis_experiment">syphilis</a> in Guatemala. It did the same at Tuskegee. Also during the Nuremberg trial, children at the Pennhurst school in southeastern Pennsylvania were given hepatitis-laced <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16059427-against-their-will">feces</a> to eat.</p>
<p>Other sites of experimentation scandals have included the Jewish Chronic Disease Hospital in Brooklyn, the Willowbrook State School on Staten Island, and Holmesburg Prison in Philadelphia. And, of course, the CIA's Project MKUltra (1953-1973) was a smorgasbord of human experimentation. Forced sterilizations of women in <a href="http://davidswanson.org/node/4098">California</a> prisons have not ended. Torture by Chicago police has for the first time just resulted in compensation for victims.</p>
<p>If we are, at long last, to put such contemptible behavior behind us, it will require breaking some bad habits.</p>
<p>Congress has busily re-banned torture a number of times in recent years. Now it must drop that charade and instead demand that the Attorney General enforce the anti-torture statute, which made torture a felony before George W. Bush ever became president.</p>
<p>It's good of John Oliver to denounce torture. And he's right to go after <a href="http://diy.rootsaction.org/petitions/admit-that-torture-does-not-work">the lies</a> told about torture in popular entertainment. But he's also spreading the false idea that it's legal. "We checked," he says, reporting that his crack team of investigators discovered that the only ban on torture is found in an executive order written by President Obama. This is dangerous nonsense. The U.S. was a party to the Anti-Torture Convention and had made torture a felony under the anti-torture statute and the war-crimes statute before George W. Bush ever became president.</p>
<p>Since then, Congress has repeatedly "banned" torture. But, just as the U.N. Charter's ban on war actually legalized certain wars, purporting to replace the total ban in the Kellogg-Briand Pact with a partial ban, these Congressional efforts (such as the Military Commissions Act of 2006) have actually legalized certain cases of torture, replacing (at least in everyone's mind) the total ban already existing in the U.S. Code and in a treaty to which the U.S. is party.</p>
<p>The latest "ban" proposal from Senator McCain and friends, would create exceptions in the form of those in the Army Field Manual, and advocates maintain that step number two would be to reform that manual. But if you skip both steps and acknowledge the existence of the anti-torture statute in the U.S. Code, you're done. The proper task is to press for its enforcement.</p>
<p>Oliver's mistake, like virtually everyone else's, is based on two myths. One, torture began with Bush. Two, torture ended with Bush. On the contrary, torture has been around in the United States and elsewhere for a very long time. So has the practice of banning it. Torture is prohibited by the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as well as the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. In fact, under international law, torture can never be legalized and is always banned.</p>
<p>Myth number two is also wrong. Torture <a href="http://warisacrime.org/ongoingtorture">has not ended</a> and won't as long as it's not punished.</p>
<p>An attorney general can be questioned and threatened with impeachment until our laws are enforced. <a href="http://act.rootsaction.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=11414">A new website created Monday</a> let's you email Congress to demand that it do just that.</p>
<p><a href="http://warisacrime.org/content/human-experimentation-cia-habit" target="_blank">read more</a></p>http://warisacrime.org/content/human-experimentation-cia-habit#commentsTortureMon, 15 Jun 2015 22:20:16 +0000davidswanson69686 at http://warisacrime.orgChild Soldier released from jail by Canadian court: US Still Seeks Jail for ‘Fighter’ Captured at 15 in Afghanistanhttp://warisacrime.org/content/child-soldier-released-jail-canadian-court-us-still-seeks-jail-%E2%80%98fighter%E2%80%99-captured-15-afghani
<p style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman Bold';"><strong>By Dave Lindorff</strong><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';">&nbsp;</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The good news is that an appellate judge in Canada has had the courage and good sense to uphold the release from jail on bail of Omar Khadr, a native of Canada who was captured as a child soldier at the age of 15 in Afghanistan by US forces back in 2002 and shipped off to Guantanamo, where he became one of the children held in captivity.</span></p>
<p><a href="http://warisacrime.org/content/child-soldier-released-jail-canadian-court-us-still-seeks-jail-%E2%80%98fighter%E2%80%99-captured-15-afghani" target="_blank">read more</a></p>http://warisacrime.org/content/child-soldier-released-jail-canadian-court-us-still-seeks-jail-%E2%80%98fighter%E2%80%99-captured-15-afghani#commentsAfghanistanCivil Rights / LibertiesCorporatism and FascismCriminal Prosecution and AccountabilityEvidenceGeneral DiscussionHistoryHuman RightsMilitary Industrial ComplexNorth AmericaObama AdministrationTortureSat, 09 May 2015 17:08:44 +0000dlindorff69525 at http://warisacrime.orgLegacy of racism and colonialism targeted: Reparations Movements Meet to Make International Connectionshttp://warisacrime.org/content/legacy-racism-and-colonialism-targeted-reparations-movements-meet-make-international-connect
<p style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;"><b><font face="times new roman, serif" size="4">By Linn Washington, Jr.</font></b></p>
<p style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;"><font face="times new roman, serif" size="4"><br /></font></p>
<p style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;"><font face="times new roman, serif" size="4">Dignitaries from three continents gathered in New York City recently to sharpen their strategies for confronting some of the world’s most powerful nations over a subject that sizable numbers of citizens support in the nearly two-dozen nations represented: reparations for the legacy of a history of slavery, colonialism and government-sanctioned segregation.</font></p>
<p><a href="http://warisacrime.org/content/legacy-racism-and-colonialism-targeted-reparations-movements-meet-make-international-connect" target="_blank">read more</a></p>http://warisacrime.org/content/legacy-racism-and-colonialism-targeted-reparations-movements-meet-make-international-connect#commentsAfricaCasualtiesCriminal Prosecution and AccountabilityEuropeGeneral DiscussionHistoryHuman RightsNorth AmericaSouth AmericaTortureWed, 15 Apr 2015 17:07:02 +0000dlindorff69441 at http://warisacrime.orgMumia’s specialized mistreatment: Emergency Illness Exposes Lies in Abu-Jamal Casehttp://warisacrime.org/content/mumia%E2%80%99s-specialized-mistreatment-emergency-illness-exposes-lies-abu-jamal-case
<p style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span><b><font face="times new roman, serif" size="4">By Linn Washington, Jr.</font></b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><font face="times new roman, serif" size="4"><br /></font></p>
<p style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span><font face="times new roman, serif" size="4">The recent emergency hospitalization of Mumia Abu-Jamal arising from alarming failures to address his chronic illnesses has exposed the inaccuracy of an assertion long made by adversaries of this inmate whom many around the world consider a political prisoner.</font></span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span><font face="times new roman, serif" size="4">His adversaries charge that Abu-Jamal receives special treatment in prison.</font></span></p>
<p><a href="http://warisacrime.org/content/mumia%E2%80%99s-specialized-mistreatment-emergency-illness-exposes-lies-abu-jamal-case" target="_blank">read more</a></p>http://warisacrime.org/content/mumia%E2%80%99s-specialized-mistreatment-emergency-illness-exposes-lies-abu-jamal-case#commentsActivismCasualtiesCorporatism and FascismCriminal Prosecution and AccountabilityGeneral DiscussionHuman RightsNorth AmericaTortureThu, 09 Apr 2015 14:26:57 +0000dlindorff69419 at http://warisacrime.orgExecution by medical neglect?: Pennsylvania’s Prison System is Torturing Mumia Abu-Jamal and his Family Toohttp://warisacrime.org/content/execution-medical-neglect-pennsylvania%E2%80%99s-prison-system-torturing-mumia-abu-jamal-and-his-fam
<p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>By Dave Lindorff</b></span></p>
<p class="p2">&nbsp;</p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s1">Mumia Abu-Jamal, the radical Philadelphia journalist convicted of killing a white Philadelphia police officer in a trial fraught with prosecutorial misconduct, witness coaching and judicial prejudice back in 1981, spent nearly three decades in solitary confinement in the deliberately designed hell of Pennsylvania’s supermax SCI Green prison before a panel of federal Appeals Court judges eventually ruled that he’d been unconstitutionally sentenced to death.</span></p>
<p class="p2">&nbsp;</p>
<p><a href="http://warisacrime.org/content/execution-medical-neglect-pennsylvania%E2%80%99s-prison-system-torturing-mumia-abu-jamal-and-his-fam" target="_blank">read more</a></p>http://warisacrime.org/content/execution-medical-neglect-pennsylvania%E2%80%99s-prison-system-torturing-mumia-abu-jamal-and-his-fam#commentsAbolitionActivismCasualtiesCivil Rights / LibertiesCorporatism and FascismCriminal Prosecution and AccountabilityGeneral DiscussionHealthcareHuman RightsNorth AmericaTortureThu, 02 Apr 2015 03:40:43 +0000dlindorff69395 at http://warisacrime.orgAdmit that torture does not workhttp://warisacrime.org/content/admit-torture-does-not-work
<h2 class="who"><span id="petition-who-to">To: </span> Keifer Sutherland and Kathryn Bigelow</h2>
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<div class="petition-text embedly">
<div class="what">
<p>Admit awareness of the fact that torture does not work in real life. <a href="http://diy.rootsaction.org/p/torture">Sign the petition</a>.</p>
<div class="mb10">
<div class="petition-image"><a href="http://diy.rootsaction.org/p/torture"><img alt="Admit that torture does not work" src="https://d8s293fyljwh4.cloudfront.net/petitions/images/100714/hero/fiction.jpg?1425309206" style="float: left; margin: 10px; border-width: 2px; border-style: solid;" title="Admit that torture does not work" /></a></div>
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<h3 class="subtitle">Why is this important?</h3>
<div class="why">
<p>The popularity and acceptability of torture have soared in the United States and around the world. This is not simply because the United States has tortured. The U.S. government, many of its policies, its wars, and key torture supporters have not seen similar boosts in popularity.</p>
<p>A major contributor to torture's improved image has been Hollywood, led by two productions that have popularized the false belief that torture can produce life-saving information. The U.S. Senate report's summary makes clear that torture has not worked in the real world. In fact, torture has generally not been used to stop an imminent attack, and has been used in some cases to compel agreement with lies about Iraqi links to al Qaeda -- lies aimed at starting a war.</p>
<p>The fantasy situation in which a torturer knows his victim has life-saving information that cannot be obtained elsewhere, and that his victim won't lie, and that torture will work better than legal interrogation exists only in fiction. But belief in it creates acceptance of torture.</p>
<p>Experts agree on this, but people need to hear it from the fictional experts they've heard of for it to seem real to them. People need to hear Keifer Sutherland, star of "24," and Kathryn Bigelow, director of "Zero Dark Thirty," admit that torture does not work in real life.</p>
<p>Sutherland and Bigelow don't need to criticize or apologize for their art. They don't need to begin self-censoring. They just need to admit that they are aware of the facts, that torture did not help find Osama bin Laden, that torture has not prevented deaths or destruction -- quite the contrary.</p>
<p>U.S. torture has been a recruiting bonanza for anti-U.S. terrorist groups. This fact is trumpted most loudly by defenders of torture and opponents of releasing reports, photos, or videos of what was done. The open secret that we need key public figures to acknowledge is that there's no up-side to weigh against the harm done.</p>
<p>On March 1, 2015, the <em>Independent</em> claimed to change everything with this headline: "Revealed: How torture was used to foil al-Qaeda 2010 plot to bomb two airliners 17 minutes before explosion." The claims in the article are not well documented and quite possibly entirely false. There is no evidence that questioning without torture wouldn't have worked as well or better than torturing. The bomb in the story may have been planted in the first place as retaliation for torture. And the serious argument against torture is not "It's just wrong" but that allowing it creates its widespread use and contributes to other brutal policies including war that kill and injure countless people driving forward vicious cycles of violence.</p>
<p>Torture creates enemies, causes horrific suffering, and dehumanizes the torturers including those who passively allow it. A torturer cannot know that someone has lifesaving information and is most likely to reveal it under torture. And once we pretend that a torturer might know that, we cannot stop the torturers from torturing large numbers of people.</p>
<p><a href="http://diy.rootsaction.org/p/torture">Sign the petition</a>.</p>
<p>Learn more with:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/28060-how-the-cia-covered-up-its-lie-on-torture-and-bin-laden">Gareth Porter: How the CIA Covered Up Its Lie on Torture and bin Laden</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/torture-it-didnt-work-then-it-doesnt-work-now-9923288.html">Patrick Cockburn: CIA Torture Report: It Didn't Work Then, It Doesn't Work Now</a></p>
<p><a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/homeland-security/226866-experienced-interrogator-torture-doesnt-work">Donald Canestraro: Experienced Interrogator: Torture Doesn't Work</a></p>
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<p></p><p><a href="http://warisacrime.org/content/admit-torture-does-not-work" target="_blank">read more</a></p>http://warisacrime.org/content/admit-torture-does-not-work#commentsTortureMon, 02 Mar 2015 15:28:57 +0000davidswanson69292 at http://warisacrime.orgNo more AUMFs! No more ‘unitary executives’!: We’re Already Losing Our Democracy and All Our Freedoms to the 2001 AUMFhttp://warisacrime.org/content/no-more-aumfs-no-more-%E2%80%98unitary-executives%E2%80%99-we%E2%80%99re-already-losing-our-democracy-and-all-our-fr
<p style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman Bold';">By Dave Lindorff<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';">&nbsp;</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Critics of President Obama’s proposed Authorization for Use of Military Force AUMF) against ISIS have been focused upon its deliberately obfuscatory and ambiguous language, which they rightly note would make it essentially a carte blanche from Congress allowing the president to go to war almost anywhere some would-be terrorist or terrorist copycat could be found who claims affinity with ISIS.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p><a href="http://warisacrime.org/content/no-more-aumfs-no-more-%E2%80%98unitary-executives%E2%80%99-we%E2%80%99re-already-losing-our-democracy-and-all-our-fr" target="_blank">read more</a></p>http://warisacrime.org/content/no-more-aumfs-no-more-%E2%80%98unitary-executives%E2%80%99-we%E2%80%99re-already-losing-our-democracy-and-all-our-fr#commentsAbolitionAfghanistanAfricaAsiaCasualtiesCongressCorporatism and FascismDronesGeneral DiscussionHistoryIranIraqLibyaMilitary Industrial ComplexNorth AmericaObama AdministrationPakistanSyriaTortureWed, 18 Feb 2015 15:29:16 +0000dlindorff69255 at http://warisacrime.orgDear, Dear: Dave Petraeushttp://warisacrime.org/content/dear-dear-dave-petraeus
<p><strong>A Pointed Letter to Gen. Petraeus</strong></p>
<p><strong>February 3, 2015</strong></p>
<p><strong>Editor Note:&nbsp; </strong>As retired Gen. and ex-CIA Director David Petraeus was about to speak in New York City last Oct. 30, someone decided&nbsp;to spare the “great man” from&nbsp;impertinent questions, so ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern was barred, arrested and&nbsp;brought to trial, prompting McGovern to ask&nbsp;some&nbsp;questions now in an open letter.</p>
<p>Dear Gen. David Petraeus,</p>
<p>As I prepare to appear in New York City Criminal Court on Wednesday <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2014/10/31/petraeus-spared-ray-mcgoverns-question/">facing charges</a>of “criminal trespass” and “resisting arrest,” it struck me that we have something in common besides being former Army officers – and the fact that the charges against me resulted from my trying to attend a speech that you were giving,&nbsp;from which&nbsp;I was barred. As I understand it, you, too, may have to defend yourself in Court someday in the future.</p>
<p>You might call me&nbsp;a dreamer, but I’m not the only one who&nbsp;believes there may be some substance to reports last month that Justice Department prosecutors are pressing to indict you for <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/eric-holder-wont-say-if-david-petraeus-will-be-indicted">mishandling</a>classified information by giving it to Paula Broadwell, your mistress/biographer.</p>
<p><img alt="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/petraeus-broadwell.jpg?628527" class="decoded" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/petraeus-broadwell.jpg?628527" width="313" height="207" /></p>
<p><span style="font-size:10px;">Gen. David Petraeus in a photo with his biographer/mistress Paula Broadwell. (U.S. government photo)</span></p>
<p>No doubt, whatever indiscretions were involved there&nbsp;seemed minor at the time, but unauthorized leaks of this sort — to casual acquaintances — were strongly discouraged in the Army in which I served five decades ago.&nbsp;Remember the old saying: “Loose lips sink ships.” There were also rules in the Universal Code of Military Justice for punishing a married soldier who took up with&nbsp;a mistress, an offense for which many a trooper spent time in the brig.</p>
<p>Yet, I don’t imagine there is much sweat on your brow regarding legal consequences for either offense.&nbsp;And you may be correct in assuming that, just as the Army looked the other way about the mistress&nbsp;indiscretion, our timorous Attorney General Eric Holder or his successor will likely do the same on any disclosure of classified information. Some influential members of Congress and various Washington talking heads have already opined that you have suffered enough.</p>
<p>Still, I find myself wondering if it does not bother you to be assigned to the comfortable, “don’t-look-back” compartment for excusing one class of violators, including CIA torturers and reckless investment bankers who were “too big (or well-connected) to jail.”&nbsp;I still want to hold out hope for even-handed, blind justice&nbsp;rather than&nbsp;give up completely on the system of justice in our country.</p>
<p>You may not be surprised to know that, try as I might to feel some empathy for you, Schadenfreude at your misfortune is winning out, since I am convinced that you had a lot to do with&nbsp;other far-more-serious&nbsp;offenses, including aiding and abetting illegal “aggressive war.” And, I suspect you also many have&nbsp;aided and abetted the circumstances that gave rise to the bizarre charges against me.</p>
<p>I refer, of course, to my violent arrest, causing pain of my fractured shoulder, and my jailing in The Tombs, simply because I wanted to hear you speak last fall at New York’s 92<sup>nd</sup> Street Y and possibly pose a question from the audience.</p>
<p><strong>Why the Police Alert?</strong></p>
<p>No doubt, your acolytes/adjutants have told you how, despite my ticket for admittance, I was denied entry, brutally arrested by the NYPD, handcuffed behind my back, jailed overnight and arraigned the following day.&nbsp;I’m still trying to figure it all out – including the enigma as to how it became known that I was coming.</p>
<p>“You’re not welcome here, Ray,” was the greeting I got from Y security as I came in the outer door.&nbsp;The NYPD was prepositioned and <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2014/11/08/the-mystery-of-ray-mcgoverns-arrest/">ready to pounce</a>.</p>
<p>Were you, your entourage and the Y authorities afraid that during the Q &amp; A I might ask an “impertinent” question of the kind <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1FTmuhynaw">I posed</a>to your patron, promoter and protector, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, during a Q &amp; A after he spoke in Atlanta six-plus years ago?</p>
<p>Speaking of Rumsfeld, you and I know him as your partner in some very serious crimes, relating to the illegal invasion of Iraq and the horrific violence that followed as well as the slaughter of so many innocent people in Afghanistan.&nbsp;For over a decade, I have closely observed your behavior and consider it nothing short of a media miracle that most Americans believe your worst sin to be that of adultery.</p>
<p>Since denial can be a very strong motivation, let me refresh your memory and remind you of the bad companions you fell in with. I am reminded of the egregious ways in which you did Rumsfeld’s bidding – winning promotions and richly undeserved fame by condoning the unspeakable – torture, for example.</p>
<p>Your third star came when you were dispatched to Iraq in June 2004, committed to carrying out Rumsfeld’s instructions to encourage Shia-on-Sunni torture and other human rights crimes.&nbsp;The all-too-predictable chickens are now coming home to roost from that unconscionably stupid attempt to defeat Sunni opponents of the U.S. occupation through such ignoble means – those chickens being what we now call ISIL or ISIS or simply the Islamic State.</p>
<p>What amazes me is that the Teflon is still clinging to you and Rumsfeld, given the bedlam in that entire area today.&nbsp;You’re not even held to account for the performance of the tens of thousands of the Iraqi troops that you crowed about having trained and equipped so well. They dropped their weapons and ran away early last year when the ragtag militants of ISIL attacked.</p>
<p>Back in April 2004 when the graphic photos of torture at Abu Ghraib in Iraq were revealed, Rumsfeld claimed he was shocked, even though the International Red Cross had been complaining about abuses there for more than a year before the revelations.</p>
<p>The Senate Armed Services Committee eventually concluded without dissent, in a major investigative report on Dec. 11, 2008, that Rumsfeld bore direct responsibility for the abuses committed by interrogators at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and other military prisons.</p>
<p>The Committee added that the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib “was not simply the result of a few soldiers acting on their own” but grew out of interrogation policies approved by Mr. Rumsfeld and other top officials, who “conveyed the message that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment for detainees.”</p>
<p>Four years before the Senate report, in May 2004, Gen. Antonio Taguba came close to revealing precisely that, when he led the Pentagon’s first (and only honest) investigation of the abuses at Abu Ghraib.&nbsp;Rumsfeld promptly fired him. Yet, throughout all this scandal and mayhem, you were maneuvering your&nbsp;way up&nbsp;the high-command ladder without any indication that you were objecting to any of this.</p>
<p><strong>Dangerous Orders</strong></p>
<p>Mid-2004 was a significant watershed for torture in another way.&nbsp;Official messages given to WikiLeaks by Pvt. Chelsea (Bradley) Manning show that FRAGO (Fragmentary Order) 242 of June 2004 went into effect the month you arrived in Iraq to oversee its implementation.</p>
<p>The WikiLeaks documents indicate that you followed Rumsfeld’s order to encourage Shiite and Kurdish commandos to torture suspected Sunni militants.&nbsp;Examining those documents as well as your actions at the time, investigative reporter Gareth Porter <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2010/110410a.html">saw that as the deeper significance</a>of FRAGO 242 – significance somehow missed by your ardent admirers in the “mainstream media.”</p>
<p>Porter, too, believes it was&nbsp;part of the larger Rumsfeld/Petraeus strategy to exploit Shia sectarian hatred of Sunnis in order to suppress the Sunni attacks on U.S. forces.&nbsp;But that strategy had some very negative long-term consequences that we are still encountering.</p>
<p>It inflamed Sunni opposition to the U.S. and its puppet government in Baghdad, and gave rise to the massive sectarian warfare of 2006 in which tens of thousands of civilians – mainly Sunnis but many Shiites as well – were killed. The violence was so widespread that U.S. field generals, such as Generals John Abizaid and George Casey, and sensible experts on the region, such as former Secretary of State James Baker, urged a new strategy late that year, essentially&nbsp;minimizing&nbsp;the American footprint in Iraq.</p>
<p>Instead, President George W. Bush enlisted your help in doubling down on the U.S. military presence in 2007 with the so-called “surge,” lest he be forced to concede defeat in Iraq before leaving office.&nbsp;You agreed and sacrificed the lives of almost 1,000 more American troops to secure what one might call an “indecent interval” that let Bush get out of Dodge without an outright loss hung around his neck.</p>
<p>As the growth of ISIL/ISIS and the chaos in the area today have made clear, your famous “surge” did little more than achieve a temporary lull (after a lot more killing). It failed to achieve its most significant stated purpose – to create space for a political resolution of the Sunni-Shiite civil conflict. It did, however, have one very important benefit. The “surge” got you your fourth star.</p>
<p>On the issue of torture, it seems clear that the straight-arrow Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine General Peter Pace, did not get the memo for how to rationalize away these disgraceful crimes. For 18 months, he was apparently unaware of FRAGO 242, which became&nbsp;obvious when Pace and Rumsfeld gave widely different answers to a question at a Pentagon press conference on Nov. 29, 2005.</p>
<p><em>Gen. Peter Pace:&nbsp;It is absolutely the responsibility of every U.S. service member, if they see inhumane treatment being conducted, to intervene, to stop it.</em></p>
<p><em>Rumsfeld: But I don’t think you mean they have an obligation to physically stop it; it’s to report it.</em></p>
<p><em>Pace: If they are physically present when inhumane treatment is taking place, Sir, they have an obligation to try to stop it.</em></p>
<p>Needless to say, Pace did not get the usual second term as JCS Chairman.</p>
<p><strong>Selective Prosecution</strong></p>
<p>These grave crimes are the ones for which you should stand trial.&nbsp;Personally, I might even be inclined to give you a pass on your marital infidelity and possibly even on sharing classified information with your mistress, if so many true patriots weren’t being prosecuted and imprisoned for sharing evidence of U.S. government misconduct with the American people.</p>
<p>And there is one other sore point regarding your esteemed career. According to a Washington Post <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/karzai-aides-decry-petraeus-remarks/2011/02/21/ABAeREI_story.html">report</a>by Joshua Partlow, datelined Kabul, Feb. 11, 2011, you shocked aides to then Afghan President Hamid Karzai when you suggested that Afghan parents had deliberately burned their own children in order to exaggerate claims of civilian casualties from U.S. military action in Konar Province.</p>
<p>Partlow quoted two of Karzai’s aides who met with you in a closed-door session at the presidential palace and found&nbsp;your remarks “deeply offensive.” They said you had dismissed allegations by Karzai’s office and the provincial governor that many civilians had been killed and that you claimed that residents of Konar had invented stories, or even injured their children, to pin the blame on U.S. forces as a ruse to end&nbsp;the operation.</p>
<p><em>“I was dizzy. My head was spinning,” said one participant, referring to Petraeus’s remarks. “This was shocking. Would any father do this to his children? This is really absurd.”</em></p>
<p>You declined comment at the time.&nbsp;So I will add my own assessment, borrowing a famous line from another dark chapter of American history: “Have you no sense of decency sir, at long last<em>? </em>Have you left no sense of decency<em>?</em></p>
<p>Yours truly,</p>
<p>Ray McGovern</p>
<p><strong>Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington.&nbsp;He was an infantry/intelligence officer during the early Sixties, and then served as an analyst and Presidential briefer during a 27-year career with the CIA.</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em>This article appeared first on consortiumnews.com.<br /></em></p>
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